Heidelberg

Yesterday I got back from a conference of all the students involved in the same program as me, RISE (Research in Science and Engineering aka Nerdfest). There were just over 300 kids there and it was a funfilled, busy 3 days! DAAD, the host of the conference, threw a nice welcome dinner for all of us at a German bar. It was buffet style so you can only imagine how long it took for all of us to eat! Of course, my table sat in a corner but we tried to wait patiently. Also during our wait my voice diminished to a sexy croaky-ness for the week due to my sinus infection/cold/allergies so that kind of sucked. Anywho… The next day was company visits. All the students were separated into groups depending on their project and studies. I was in a group that went to Frankfurt and we got to see a lot of cool stuff!! We started at a power plant that burns the garbage from the surrounding area to supply heat and electricity to the homes and businesses in the area. It was smelly at times but I’m not sure if it was worse than the waste water treatment plant I went to last semester for school. The results are in inclusive and further studies are being done.

Next we had a very delicious lunch and presentation about how Frankfurt is hoping to become Europe’s Green Capital. I won’t go into to details but they are doing different developmental things to improve their sustainability while supporting a growing population. After that we went to a natural history museum and I actually liked it! I know, I know. You may ask “Brian, you had fun at a MUSEUM?!” And my response is that I had fun because the tour guide was very good. He wasn’t just any old tour guide, oh no. He was a Ph.D. student that is a tour guide on the side. So he was very informative and knew where all the good displays were.

Wait a minute...

Then after that we went to the headquarters of a major bank here in Germany, Commerzbank. The building used to be the tallest building in Europe until Russia had to be all Russian and take all the glory. Geezzzz. The building is unique because it has open gardens every 4 floors and uses environmentally friendly technologies to reduce energy required for heating and cooling. After that very long day we got back to the hostel a little later than planned and almost had no dinner. But thankfully we did because we needed fuel for the fun filled night. Most of the kids at the conference all met at a nearby park and drank and just hung. I will say it is weird being allowed to have open alcoholic bottles/beverages in public spaces. But everybody behaves themselves so it all works out.

The next day was our last day (awwww) but we still had some presentations to go to. Once those were done and everyone had taken a nap during them, we had a tour of Heidelberg. It wasn’t the best tour but I still got some nice picture of some of the town.

Overall, it was a very fun weekend. I got to meet and hang out with cool people on someone else’s dollar (Euro?). It was nice to hang out with people my own age and who speak pretty good English. A couple of us have started to speak German-English which probably won’t last but is still funny. It was sad to leave and have to come back to work where I sit at a computer most of the day and don’t really talk to anyone. I’m looking more and more forward to going home and starting classes. I really miss Ann Arbor and all that goes with it.